


The Adventure Of The Hammersmith Wonder

by Cerdic519



Series: Further Adventures Of Mr. Sherlock Holmes [3]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Blacksmithing, Circus, Deception, F/M, Forgery, Kissing, London, M/M, Male brothels, Period Typical Attitudes, Scandal, Untold Cases of Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 08:51:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14712971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: The reason behind Sherrinford Holmes' absence from his much more famous brother Sherlock's life - because he was rather busy running a somewhat unusual business empire!





	The Adventure Of The Hammersmith Wonder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lyster99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyster99/gifts).



_Introduction by Sir Sherrinford Holmes, Baronet_

My brother Sherlock was eighteen and set to turn nineteen when this story is set, and like all the early tales, it is narrated by he himself. He told me when we were looking through Watson's notes that he had _(very)_ grudgingly been forced to concede his friend's oft-stated point that writing a story was much harder than people thought, and that he himself had been stung at the poor reaction to the few tales related by him instead of the good doctor, 'Sherlockians' much preferring the doctor's narrative abilities. But my dear brother was not the sort of person to get jealous over such things. No way. Perish the thought.

۩۩۩۩V♔R۩۩۩۩

_Narration by Mr. William Sherlock Scott Holmes, Esquire_

My eldest (and very marginally less annoying) brother was of course quite incorrect. I was not nor had I ever been jealous of Watson's writing abilities. And someone could stop with the smirking right _now!_

There were many reasons why these 'new' adventures, all referenced by Watson in his published stories, could not be told when they occurred. The most common by far was that some innocent person might be harmed by their inclusion, but there were also a very small number which were so incredible that I was sure the gentle British public would surely have assumed them to have been fictitious. When Sherry (he hates that nickname, which is why I use it) asked that there be in total a whole gross of stories, this was one of the three extra ones that I agreed to have published. The main reason for my initial reluctance was that this was the first small matter upon which I brought my detective abilities to bear – and it also explained Sherry's apparent absence from my life in print, which only our most observant readers came to note.

My father had died early the previous year and I cannot say that truly mourned him. Always a cold man, he had become increasingly opinionated in his latter years; I do not like to record that I was relieved at his passing, but it was true.

Sherry had a particularly difficult time, not only with his two young charges to raise but also because our grandfather Sweyn had passed on not long after our father, which meant that he found himself thrown into running the extensive Holmes estates at the age of twenty-seven. Money has been the ruination of many a young man (and many an older one) but fortunately Sherry was solid to the point of being completely unimaginative, and performed his new duties well. I myself was coming to the end of my first year at Christ College in Oxford, and was progressing well when a brief visit to London brought me this, my first ever case.

۩۩۩۩V♔R۩۩۩۩

This case possessed a slight connection with one of the most infamous stories of the time. In December of the previous year a Canadian brigantine, the _”Dei Gratia”_ , had whilst crossing the wide Atlantic Ocean come across the American brigantine _”Mary Celeste”_ (a brigantine is a ship with at least two large sails on the second and taller of its two masts). It had all been very strange; there had been no signs of any trouble or disturbance having taken place, yet the lifeboat and everyone on board had vanished. The _”Mary Celeste”_ which had been found a little way off the Azores was duly taken to Gibraltar where almost inevitably the conspiracy theorists had a field-day with her. The British Government to its discredit used this as an excuse to pay the crew of the “ _Dei Gratia”_ far short of the prize's true value. 

My connection to this strange story came about because one of the passengers on board the “ _Dei Gratia”_ had been a Mr. Thor Hardland, one of Sherry's few friends at college. Mr. Hardland had emigrated to Canada some three years since, but had had to briefly return to England to sort out his late father's estate to which he was the primary heir. And it was matters arising from that which led to what was in truth my first case.

Our family had two properties in London in one of which my brother Mycroft lived, although he spent nearly all his time as his various clubs including the (in)famous Diogenes Club which he had co-founded. Sherry lived mostly on the family estate in Sussex, so I rarely saw either of them. As I neared the end of my first year however I decided to spend the summer at our other London property which lay in (Lower) Baker Street. I had no definite plans for my time there but would probably call in on Mycroft at some point as well as doing the usual 'sights'. 

It was the day after my arrival when I had a visitor, which to my astonishment was Sherry. For him to quit the peace and quiet of his Sussex haven was rare indeed, and the look on his face was one which did not betoken good news.

“I may have a son!”

I stared at him, nonplussed. Sherry had never coped well with the unexpected, but now he looked almost ill with worry. 

“You have two”, I observed. “Has something happened to Crispin or Crispinian?”

“I meant that I may have another son”, he said, running his hand through his blond locks. “It is a complete mess. I need help Sherlock, and it has to be you.”

I could see his point. Mycroft was (I admit it reluctantly) more knowledgeable than me but our middle brother lacked even a scintilla of understanding when it came to human behaviour. And he and Sherry had never got on well, so there would have been little sympathy even if our middle sibling had been capable of such an alien emotion.

“Sit down and tell me all about it”, I said.

۩۩۩۩V♔R۩۩۩۩

“Do you remember when I went down to Thor Hardland's house in Essex some five years back?” he began.

I noted that he was already onto his second glass of whisky. He was virtually teetotal. This had to be bad.

“Yes?” I said cautiously. He blushed fiercely.

“His sister Patricia.... she was an incredibly forward young woman”, he managed. “Not unattractive on a physical level but her character repelled anyone who knew her; I will not call her a lady, for she was none. The night Thor got called away I awoke the following day to find her in my bed. I had been drunk and she had.....”

He tailed off, and I winced. This was the seedy underbelly of Victorian England, when people behaved more according to their base natures than the high moral standards expected by society at large. 

“I understand”, I said quickly, not wishing for details. “What happened?”

“Fortunately Thor knew his sister for what she was”, Sherry said, “and was quite understanding. I do not know what happened, but some time later she committed some other indiscretion for which she was disowned and thrown out of the house, so....”

“How much time?” I interrupted.

He looked surprised but answered readily enough.

“Four or five, if I remember”, he said. “Is that important?”

“And your friend did not tell you the reason?” I asked.

I knew at once that I had asked a foolish question. Sherry drew himself up indignantly.

“That”, he said haughtily, “is family business. A _gentleman_ does not ask!”

I felt suitably chastened and quickly changed my line of questioning. Sherry could give the proverbial maiden aunt a run for her money when it came to Starchy Disapproval.

“You said that your friend went to America?” I asked.

“Newfoundland”, he said, still clearly nettled by my previous question. “A lady from there had visited Oxford and had chanced to meet him, and he had followed her back there when his course was complete. A Miss Beauregard Quennington; it turned out that her family owned a huge logging business over there and that she was the sole heiress. Her father was wary of Thor at first, but he charmed him as he does so many. I believe he gave up his estate here to the eldest of his half-brothers who lives somewhere in London. He has three others of the things but they all married particularly well. Well, two of them did and the other one is engaged.”

“And now the sister has re-surfaced?” I asked. He nodded glumly.

“Complete with the child that she claims is mine”, he said glumly. “And I have no way of disproving that claim.”

“Have you seen the child?” I asked cautiously. He nodded again.

“He bears some resemblance to me, even at seven years of age”, he said.

That was hardly conclusive, I thought. I had met Mr. Thor Hardland the once, and physically _he_ had looked more like Sherry's brother than either Mycroft or myself.

“Whether he is or no, she clearly wants money for the boy”, he sighed. “Or more likely for herself.”

I thought for a while.

“Have you seen the boy's birth certificate?” I asked.

He nodded and opened the small folder he had been carrying, extracing a document that he handed over. Opening it, I pulled out a birth certificate. Sheridan Patrick Hardland, born on the eighteenth day of December, Anno Domini Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Five.

“No father”, I noted, “but then we both know that they will not enter that unless the gentleman is there in person. I must say that I find the gap curious.”

“What gap?” he asked.

“The boy was born nearly eight years ago”, I pointed out. “Father did not die until last year, and even though he was often ill, there was no guarantee that you would inherit the whole estate and be worth her pursuing. She has managed to support herself – and her child – for all that time.”

“Please!” he ground out. “This is London. We can both guess exactly how she did that!”

“Still, that is not not easy with a child in tow”, I said. “You did not mention the name of your friend's brother.”

“Kean”, he said. “The second Mrs. Hardland was a lady of Irish extraction; a formidable lady Thor once told me. He said that Kean is a blacksmith down in Hammersmith.”

“Perhaps he might be worth seeing”, I said. “We have to start somewhere.”

۩۩۩۩V♔R۩۩۩۩

I did not expect it to be difficult to track down a blacksmith with an unusual name, even in the growing mess that was London Town. Sure enough, the first person I asked after alighting at the underground station knew both his workplace and home. I was surprised that he did not live 'above the shop', but I supposed that with his inheriting the Hardland estate he could afford such a luxury. Indeed, I was also surprised that he had not thrown in his job when his half-brother had decamped to the Americas, although perhaps he liked it enough to wish to continue. Some people were strange like that.

I had considered if Miss Hardland might be hoping to inherit the family estate herself in some way, despite her disavowal, but Sherry had told me that two of Mr. Kean Hardland's brothers already had sons from their marriages. If she was thinking to force my brother into marriage, she was most definitely flogging a dead horse.

The Hammersmith smith owned a small house in Syon Street, not far from the great River Thames. I decided to call there first and was fortunate enough to catch the cleaning-lady, a Mrs. Wall. She told me as it was nearly three o'clock in the afternoon her employer would be home in an hour, which seemed rather early to be quitting a busy place like a forge unless he worked short hours. After some quick thought I expressed annoyance that I was compelled to depart for another appointment, but would like to leave her employer a note. She was gracious enough to leave me in the lounge and bustled off to finish her chores.

I looked carefully around the room and smiled slightly. I was beginning to have some hopes of this investigation, although it would still require some careful handling on my part if I was to bring matters to a successful conclusion on Sherry's behalf. Hoping that the cleaner would not communicate my visit I did not leave a note, but merely checked around the room. I paid particular attention to a small red ball on a chair, and also to one of those ghastly torture devices where one had to get a ball on a string into an attached cup without (presumably) being overcome by the desire to travel back in time and murder the inventor of the thing. I called my thanks to the cleaner as I left.

۩۩۩۩V♔R۩۩۩۩

One of the maxims that I would later state to be a foundation of my investigatory work was that the most successful crimes were the simplest. Much like any machinery, the more complicated a crime became then the greater likelihood of something going wrong. Presuming as I did my brother's innocence, it therefore held that the birth certificate itself (which Sherry had provided me; the trollop in question had informed him that she had registered a copy with a lawyer) was itself questionable. Come to that, I thought it curious that the woman had gone to a lawyer rather than merely ask at Somerset House (where they registered births, deaths and marriages) for a second version; I supposed they did charge for such things but it would be infinitely cheaper. I decided to head for that establishment; it was a long shot, but I hoped to find someone there who might be able to answer a rather unusual question.

I was fortunate. One of the young clerks there, Mr. Martin Fernhurst, was helpfulness personified, although as I had expected even he blanched at my question.

“You wish... to fake a document, sir?” he asked in a low voice, looking round furtively in case his employers should see him discussing something so outrageous.

“That would be _quite_ improper”, I said. “I merely wish to know how this place goes about making copies of official documents, which presumably people ask for from time to time. I assume that they are all copied out by hand?”

He smiled in relief.

“They are, sir”, he admitted. “Do I take it, then, that you are possessed of a certificate whose provenance is in doubt? We do wish to eliminate any forgeries that may be out there.”

I took the birth certificate out of its wallet and showed it to him. He held it up to the light and smiled – but his smile suddenly vanished.

“This is terrible!” he said. “It is a forgery. A most excellent one, and one which was made on official paper most likely from here.”

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“Observe the watermark”, he said, pointing out a heraldic device imprinted into the paper. “It shows our coat of arms. That in itself would seem to be proof of its authenticity, except for one small but damning detail. As an extra security measure we make minuscule changes to the design each calendar year. The date on this certificate is eighteen hundred and sixty-five – but the _paper_ that it is written on comes from two years later, and was only used during that year. You will see that the upper left quadrant of the shield had seven stars, not eight as was the case two years prior, and also that there were two diamonds on the scroll beneath, not three as there should have been. I do not see how such a document could have been created – or why, for that matter.”

“Would not a copy be on a different type of paper from the original year?” I asked.

“This cannot be a copy”, he said. “We have special paper that we use for those, and we also mark each corner with a mark to indicate why the paper does not match. Someone has written this up to appear to be an original – yet they have used the wrong paper!”

“In other words”, I said, “the person who created this forged document most likely used paper from here.”

He nodded, looking if anything even paler.

“We obtain our paper supplies from a single mill in Surrey”, he said, “and a local firm adds the watermarks in batches. We do not of course tell them which ones are used when, and we keep several years' supply in at a time.”

“I think”, I said slowly, “that I had better speak to your supervisor.”

۩۩۩۩V♔R۩۩۩۩

I did not really take to the manager in charge of the office, a far too pompous fellow in his early fifties called Mr. Æthelbert Brown. I had to waste the best part of ten minutes in convincing him that poor Mr. Fernhurst was not implicated in the matter, but finally we got down to business.

“I can see no way to put this but bluntly”, I said firmly if a little impatiently, “so blunt I will be. Some time in 'Sixty-Seven one of your employees entered into a relationship with a woman of dubious virtue.”

He spluttered indignantly at that, and I hurried on before he could make even more fuss.

“The woman targeted your employee because she wished to obtain a document which she would later use in a blackmail attempt”, I said. “I am afraid that your employee, as rather too many men do these days, thought with his lower brain....”

“Mr. Holmes!”

“But to do him some credit, he did find a way to limit the damage he was doing to this illustrious organization”, I said. “By copying out the fake certificate that the woman asked for on the wrong paper for that year, he left open the chance that her ramp would one day be exposed.”

“We shall find the man and sack him at once!” Mr. Brown said firmly.

“I really would advise against such a course of action”, I said.

“Why, sir?” he demanded. “It is a dismissible offence!”

“Confidence”, I said. “If you _did_ find and dismiss the man, then he might well retaliate by revealing to the general public just how lax security procedures are in this place.”

“He would not dare!” Mr. Brown said hotly.

“Why would he not?” I asked. “He would have nothing to lose. I suggest instead that we offer him a rather better alternative; a written warning if he is prepared to name names.”

۩۩۩۩V♔R۩۩۩۩

Fortunately for his employment, Mr. George Clones was prepared to name names. Of course it was a false name, but he remembered the commission and the 'circumstances' that had brought it about. Sadly I felt the need to reiterate to Mr. Brown about not taking any further action, because he struck me as the sort of person who well might.

۩۩۩۩V♔R۩۩۩۩

Because I had some inkling of how matters might develop, I took Sherry not the direct route to Mr. Kean Hardland's house but via the Metropolitan Railway's line to their Hammersmith Station (the District Extension did not open until the following year). This left us with a considerable walk and my brother naturally complained that we had not taken a cab. I had my reasons. 

About halfway to our destination we passed a building site, whose outer fence was covered with the inevitable posters. One of them was for the Galliano Circus, which operated in and around London. I stopped to peruse it.

“I would not have thought you would be interested in such fripperies”, Sherry said plaintively. He did not, as I have said, take well to the more built-up parts of the city, although he had liked suburban Kennington when we had lived there.

“I find people's interest in them curious”, I said. “For example, why would people pay their hard-earnt pennies to go and see a man with more muscles than average. Even if he is 'Vigor, The Hammersmith Wonder'!”

I moved on to the next poster but noted out of the corner of my eye that my brother was more than interested in the picture of Vigor, who was wearing a most impractical pair of leopard-print shorts that left precious little to the imagination. The poster designers were clearly targeting one-half of the city's population with that image.

Maybe more than half, given the fact my brother had just had to wipe away some drool!

۩۩۩۩V♔R۩۩۩۩

As we approached our target's house Sherry became visibly more nervous.

“What if he hits me?” he asked as we mounted the steps.

“I doubt very much that he would do that, given the circumstances”, I smiled. “Besides you had the same self-defence lessons that I did.”

He just looked at me.

“You know that I am no fighter”, he complained.

That was true. Despite looking very much the atypical Viking, Sherry was the sort of person who would not say boo to a goose. I sighed and led the way up the steps.

“Mr. Sherlock and Mr. Sherrinford Holmes”, I said to the man who came to the door. “Is it possible to speak with Mr. Hardland for a moment, please?”

We were duly shown in and moments later led into a room. I managed to hide a smile at my brother's barely concealed gasp as our host loomed into view. He was a tall man (and we Holmeses are all above average height, but this six foot six behemoth towered over us both), broad and muscular, wearing clothes that were quite casual for the time.

Mr. Kean Hardland. Also known as Vigor, The Hammersmith Wonder. I heard what was definitely a whimper from behind me.

“How may I be helping you gentlemen?” our host asked courteously. There was the faintest of Irish accents, but it was barely noticeable.

We all sat down. I noticed (but was too kind to comment on the fact) that Sherry was as far away from our host as could be without falling over the arm of the sofa. The behemoth looked at us curiously.

“I am afraid that this is a somewhat delicate matter”, I began, “so I must crave your forbearance until I have explained everything. It is about young Master Patrick Hardland.”

There was a definite change in the giant's attitude. His eyes narrowed.

“Yes?” he said warily. “What of him?”

“It concerns your sister's removal of him from his school recently”, I said.

The giant rose to his feet. I heard a definite squeak of fear from behind me.

“What do you know of that?” Mr. Hardland demanded angrily.

“Your sister took him to see my brother here”, I explained. “She attempted, almost successfully, to pass him off as the result of the briefest of encounters between the two of them, the clear implication being that she expected money for his upbringing.”

Mr. Hardland peered around me at Sherry, who was finding the room rather cold judging by the way in which he was shivering.

“You were a fool to be taken in by that trollop!” he said scornfully.

“In my brother's defence the scheme was most carefully planned”, I said. “She had obtained a fake birth certificate which looked most genuine; indeed, had she not pushed matters with the gentleman from whom she obtained it, he might not have left the small but incriminating clues which later exposed her foul dealings.”

The man nodded.

“Pat is my nephew, Keiran's eldest”, he said. “She went to his school and took him out for a day the other week; he was staying with me because his parents were attending a wedding up in Scotland. I lost it when I found out; everyone, them included, knows not to give her as much as the time of day now!”

“Doubtless she hoped to extract a large sum from my brother with the promise of future access to the boy”, I ventured, “and then disappear abroad before her scheme was exposed.”

“Keiran and Calum married well”, our host said, “and Dermot is engaged to a rich merchant's daughter. I have this place, as you can see. Patty did not take well to being cut out of things when Father died. And when she tried to blackmail me.....”

He stopped, looked decidedly awkward.

“Why did she do that?” Sherry asked. Our host grinned at him.

“I only found out when Thor came back and settled the estate on me”, he smiled. “The real reason our father had made it so rich. He had built up a whole empire of molly-houses – twelve of the things! - and was coining it.”

Sherry gasped.

“So that was why Thor disappeared off every weekend.....”

The behemoth could move a lot faster than I had thought. He was round me and towering over my brother in a flash.

“Pity you do not have the brains to go with those looks, _sir!_ ” he said harshly. “I do not mix business with pleasure!”

Sherry whimpered. The man towering over him grinned lasciviously.

“But you were right about Thor”, he said. “We have quite a few married men who make a nice bit of extra income that way. He was on page eight of our old catalogue. Hammer of the Gods indeed!”

“You're beautiful!”

I did not think that Sherry was capable of saying anything in that high a voice, but it certainly stunned the man looking set to pound him into the carpet. Mr. Hardland looked uncertainly at him, then grinned again and....

I stared in astonishment. My brother, who despite his size was barely half the bulk of the behemoth looming over him, had somehow grabbed the fellow and was kissing the living daylights out of him. And Mr. Hardland duly growled his approval and pulled Sherry even closer. It was.... ugh, sappy!

I had to cough pointedly – _three times!_ \- before the love-birds parted, obviously with great reluctance. And the noise that came out of Sherry when Mr. Hardland returned to his chair – no little brother, however bad he may or may not have been in his younger years, deserved to hear that!

“Well”, I said at last. Even our huge host seemed stunned by developments, although he was definitely eyeing my brother up in a way that told me what was going to happen some time.... and now I was thinking of That! Sherry so owed me for this, damn him!

“I am sorry you were troubled by my excuse for a sister”, Mr. Hardland said at last. “It will not happen again. Though I am not sorry that it brought you here. Not sorry at all!!”

“I am glad that everything is cleared up”, I said. “Sherry. Shall we go?”

He looked pointedly at me. Once again I thought of those few(ish) times that I had teased him whilst I had been growing up. None of them deserved that look.

“You go on ahead”, he said. “Kean and I..... need to talk.”

I left the house. Quickly!

۩۩۩۩V♔R۩۩۩۩

It was some time after this when I met Sherry in a restaurant – the bastard did not need to wince as he sat down, damn him! - and he casually mentioned that should I ever become famous in whatever field I settled in, I had probably best not reveal that I had an elder brother living with a man who owned an empire of molly-houses. We both laughed at the very idea.

Ah.


End file.
